Three-Quarters of All Electronic Messages are Sent Via Mobile Phones

Published on: 11th Mar 2009

Note -- this news article is more than a year old.

A survey has found that 74% of all messages globally are now sent through a mobile device, report TNS. This is a huge increase on 12 months ago where this figure was only 59%. This trend is even higher in emerging markets where nine out ten messages now go out via mobiles.

"As mobile devices slowly take away usage share from fixed services in
developed markets, in emerging markets consumers are more likely to by-pass
fixed communications altogether and go straight to mobiles," said Sam Curtis,
Sector Development Manager at TNS Technology. The study reveals that in India,
for example, consumers are twice more likely to have a mobile phone than a fixed
line telephone.

Although emailing from a PC is still the most popular form of messaging in
the developed world, there are signs that this too is changing. In Japan for
instance, 40 out of 100 emails sent are from a mobile device and in North
America, 69% of those using email on their mobile phone use it daily, compared
to only 43% globally. This trend looks set to continue, not least because of the
rise in Smartphones entering the market.

Mobile Instant Messaging (MIM) is another communication technology
experiencing strong growth. 13% of mobile users now use this feature globally,
compared to only 8% in the previous year. The growth amongst Smartphone users is
even more dramatic with an increase from 13% to 41% this year.

But once again, it is in the emerging markets that MIM has the most
opportunities. In China for example, a significant 16% of mobile phone owners
use MIM, which accounts for 27 out of every 100 messages sent across all
technologies. When we compare this to the US, MIM penetration sits above China
at 17%, but only accounts for 5 out of every 100 messages sent.

Sam Curtis continues: "This is another example of the emerging market
consumer leap-frogging right to the most suitable technology. We have also seen
very similar trends emerging in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. MIM's
low cost and less formal tone is ideally suited to consumers who can communicate
without boundaries for the first time.

The way that consumers communicate is changing and diversifying and not one
brand or service provider can claim to have effectively captured these trends
and delivered the complete consumer communication experience. With stats like
these, this won't be the case for much longer. "

TNS completed analysis of the results of its Global Technology Insight in 32
markets with more than 20,000 consumers in January 2009. The study looked into
some of the most pressing themes in the telecoms industry such as the purchase
process, brand commitment, usage, opportunities in the emerging markets and
convergence.